...a flood of shadows moved south through the northern mountains in the Land of the Morning Calm...The sound of padding feet and clanking gear echoed and re-echoed off miles and miles of otherwise silent countryside...
...By midnight, a division of tanks stood poised and waiting at a border the entire world would soon know as the 38th Parallel.
...At dawn, the tanks grumbled awake and tractored forward, leading 7 infantry divisions out of the towering Taebaeks and into the peaceful foothills and valleys below.
......Thus began the Korean War...on Sunday, June 25th, 1950...
..........Millions of unsuspecting people were doomed to violent death--tens of thousands were Americans...But for them, and thousands of their young allies, South Korea would not be free today.

.......This is a brief reminder--The Forgotten War is not forgotten...and neither are those boys and young men who fought it...
......

__________________
Bill Barry
Sgt USMC
1951 ~ 1954

The following icons are the names of Veterans that gave thier all during the Korean War.

YONGSAN GARRISON, South Korea — The curator for The War Memorial of Korea visited Yongsan’s main post library Thursday to talk with residents about the beginning of the Korean War.

Kang Chang-kook, The War Memorial of Korea curator and former South Korean army major, talks Thursday to residents at Yongsan Garrison about Saturday’s 55th anniversary of the start of the Korean War.

Saturday is the 55th anniversary of the beginning of the war. Kang Chang-kook, curator and former South Korean army major, talked for about 45 minutes about his thoughts on history.

Kang spoke of the major events, reciting dates and figures without aid of notes. He talked of the 45,000 troops — including 5,637 Korean Augmentees to the U.S. Military — who made the Inchon Landing, led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. He talked about how U.N. and South Korean soldiers recovered the occupied city of Seoul on Sept. 27, 1950, and how they lost the city again on Jan. 4, 1951.

He said part of what he does as museum curator is educate younger Koreans about the importance of the 1.78 million U.N. forces who fought in Korea.

His message is that the Americans — who lost 33,642 troops in the war — should be welcomed warmly.

He stressed that the U.S. troops should visit the museum, which borders Yongsan’s main post — entry is free with a U.S. military identification card — and other historic spots such as “Freedom Bridge” and Panmunjom, which sits on the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea.

Even though the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, the “war has not ended,” he said.

...Domo arrigato to my good friend and Brudder, AJ, for building this fine memorial in honor and remembrance of all the men and boys who fought the Korean War. In its stunning simplicity, the rollcall of dead is especially touching and moving, name by name by name...
...On behalf of my many old comrades who are listed: Thank you, AJ--for having the original idea in the first place, and then for the long hard work that you did to turn your uncommon impulse into this splendidly concrete homage...
...Thus, The Forgotten War is starkly remembered, well and true to all who answered Duty's bugle call--Peace and Semper Fi to all of them, and to you too...Bill Barry

June 25, 1950 the 38th Parallel marked the beginning of a war that was to be like no other. Many years have passed since the end of the Chosin Reservoir Campaign in North Korea.

The American public has all but forgotten the violence and valor that took place there at the fighting man's level.

The fifty fifth anniversary of the Korean War gives both the armed forces and the nation an opportunity to honor those veterans who served in that bitter war.

The battle continues along the present demilitarized zone. The location of this line largely above the 38th Parallel is historic evidence that in Korea, aggression did not pay.

In Korea the American soldier with his Korean and United Nations allies fought with bravery and skill against his communist foes.

THE KOREAN WAR

The Korean War has often been referred to as the "forgotten war" because it came on the heels of World War II and was overshadowed by the Vietnam War. Korea like Vietnam, was part of the Cold War to stop the advancement of Communism in Southeast Asia. When the Communist troops of North Korea invaded the democratic Republic of South Korea, the United States became involved through a promise of support given to the president of South Korea. It was feared that this tiny peninsula would be the setting for the eruption of World War Three.

When the United Nations joined forces with the United States and the Republic of South Korea to stop the invasion, this fear was justified.

North Korea not only had the support of the Soviet Union government, but also the military support of China. The stage was set for a bloody three years.

In 1945 the United Nations established the 38th parallel as the boundary dividing North and South Korea. It was the 38th that the North Koreans crossed to invade and unite South Korea under a Communist government. The United States entered the conflict under an assumption that this would be like a police action to drive the North Koreans back across the 38th. The two armies criss-crossed the dividing line several times. When the Chinese feared that their own borders were threatened, they became involved on the side of the North Koreans. The conflict then escalated further into war.

Because the Korean War only lasted three years (1950 - 1953) it is not thought of as significant, and often not even mentioned. However, if one compares the statistics of the Korean War (54,246) to those of Vietnam (58,226) which lasted over sixteen years, by ratio the Korean War was far bloodier than Vietnam.

AJ- I would like to thank you for your excellent memorial to our men who gave all that they could give in Korea.

One of my husband's cousins is listed under the "M's".

I would invite other members to post pictures of the tombstones and locations of the cemetaries where these brave men rest. Even if you didn't know them personally, it would be a fine and continuing memorial to their lives. I plan on making this an ongoing project from all the local cemetaries that I can access.

Joe Joyce who survived the Korean War has recieved his final orders. This was written by Bill Barry aka "BuckStripes" in honor of Joe.

He was an Irish-Catholic kid from the Bronx. Growing up, he was tall and skinny. At De La Salle High School, he suffered through Latin and Trig and the proper use of the English language--spoken and written. He graduated with College-Prep Smarts on a lovely day in June, 1951...

...Joseph Joyce then matriculated to Parris Island, Souse Calina, United States Marine Corps Boot Camp. Twelve weeks later, he was a right strapping lad, filled out on 3 Chow Calls per day, and muscled up on nonstop running from one drill to the next, paternally mentored by a trio of livid and screaming DIs fathered by Satan...

...Joe Joyce was a rifleman. At Camp Pendleton in sultry Southern California, he endured forced marches and other pleasantly grinding recreations in the godforsaken sandhill Boonies, where ( he was certain) the giant rattlesnakes lay everywhere in wait to kill him. They failed...

...In 1952, Joe and his platoon took an ocean cruise across the wide Pacific, and after a brief pause in Japan, the troop ship sailed on to South Korea, The Land Of The Morning Calm...

...The war was raging, and Joe joined the 1st Marine Division on its drive back north, over all the same ground it had won before--then lost when a general named MacArthur lied the troops into a Chinese trap set for them at the Chosin Reservoir...

...Joe's Marines wore khaki puttees around their lower legs. They headed up through Inchon and Seoul and the lower Taebaek mountains. Behind themselves, they left the land littered with dead Chinese. And it finally dawned on the PLA's Red commissars what was going wrong for their beaten fighters. So, the order was given: Avoid contact with Americans wearing khaki puttees. They are The Marines...

...Joe was a Marine. Like the Pendleton rattlesnakes, the Chinese couldn't kill him. He came home a strapping man, tough and a little ornery toward wise guys on the street. But he had a sense of humor, and a sharp eye for the ladies, and a soft spot for kids and people in trouble...
...He became a Noo Yawk cop, a walking poster ad for the NYPD. He worked hard, and he played hard. But the bottle finally got him, and he was sent to Virginia for rehab...

...Twas a stroke of luck. He met and married the one true love of his life, Viola. She was a poet and an artist and Irish. Faith and Begorra! She bore him a son, adding to children of her own. Joe became a deputy sheriff. Life was good. Life was fantastic! Until cancer struck the love of his life and she died. It broke Joe's heart. But he carried on as best he could, even while missing her every single waking day, and more so each lonely night...

...Years later, when he received his own bad news, it hit him hard. Yet, he recovered from the shock, did what the doctors told him to do, and he fought the good fight, winning far more time than he had been told to expect. Like a good Marine, he kept on keeping on just as long as he possibly was able...

...Now Joe is gone. My pal and comrade. My elder, he noted whenever I got too cheeky with him, my elder by all of two months. No more japes and gibes about how the Brooklyn Prep kid's footballers could kick the bejazzus outta them Bronax pansies. No more far deeper discussions about everything under the sun, the stuff that really mattered...

...Our chum is dead. I miss him already. These tears are for him...

...Semper Fi, Ole Cruncher--May the dawn be rising brightly, wherever you are. And may you be holding hands with your True Love again

On June 25, 1950, Communist North Korea invaded the Republic of [South] Korea.

From my Introduction to Part I of Unjust Blame?: The Korean War, Chinese Intervention, and Douglas MacArthur—available on Amazon in a few months—here is how military historian T.R. Fehrenbach described what happened early that morning.

It was Sunday morning in Seoul now, and the embassy bars were closing. Only a few dreaming—or drunken—young people still lingered in the KMAG Officers’ Open Mess. It was almost dawn, and even the private parties were dying. Any young officer who had not made out by now never would.

And the storm that had hovered over the high peaks of Bukhan Mountain north of the city broke. The rain sheeted down, true monsoon, and it was good to sleep by. People woke, smiled in the dawn's freshness, and returned to sleep. Workers, passing out of the city through Namdai Mun, the South Gate, laughed and sang as they crossed the bridge over the Han [River]. Below them the gray shapes of massive junks and the thin shadows of motor launches lay quietly on the rain-speckled dark water.

White-clad farmers smiled as they scooped up chamber pots outside the surrounding villages’ doors, and filled their reeking honey buckets. Life was hard, but again the people would be able to buy rice.

The million and a half people of Seoul did not expect the future to be good. They expected to survive.

And miles to the north, beyond the roads the Americans had named Long Russia and Short Russia ended, beyond the religious missions on the parallel at Kaesong, where the Methodist missionaries, reassured by [United States] Ambassador Muccio, still slept, far to the east of Seoul in a town called H’wach’on, Senior Colonel Lee Hak Ku looked once again at his watch.

He looked up, met the eyes of the booted and blue-breeched officers standing about him in the Operations Post. They were all young, and hard, and most of their adult lives had been spent at war, with the Chinese, with the Soviets. They had fought Japanese; they had fought Nationalists. Now they would fight the running dogs of the American Imperialists, or whoever else got in their way.

All around, men in mustard-colored cotton uniforms were moving in the wet, predawn murkiness. Covers were coming off stubby howitzer muzzles; diesel tank engines shuddered into raucous life. The monsoon was turning into drizzle now along the dark hills that framed the demarcation zone [between North and South Korea].

The varihued green paddies glistened with water, but the roads were hard and firm. The big long-gunned tanks began to move.

Back along the valley, where two divisions awaited the order to slash southward, officers raised their right arms. Section chiefs filled their lungs for shouting. The heavy guns had been trained and loaded long before.

Then men shouted, and dark cannon spat flame into the lowering sky. From the cold Eastern Sea to the foggy sandbanks of the Yellow Sea to the west, along every corridor that led to the South, night ended in a continuous flare of light and noise.

The low-slung, sleek tanks attached to the 7th Division spurted forward, throwing mud from their tracks. Designed for the bogs of Russia, they rolled easily over the hard-packed earth. Behind them poured hordes of shrieking small men in brown shirts.